obama讲话.pdf

Remarks of President Barack Obama Protecting Our Security and Our Values National Archives Museum Washington D C May 21 2009 Thank you all for being here Let me just acknowledge the presence of some of my outstanding Cabinet members and advisers We ve got our secretary of state Hillary Clinton We have our CIA director Leon Panetta We have our secretary of defense William sic Gates Secretary Napolitano of the Department of Homeland Security Attorney General Eric Holder my national security adviser Jim Jones and I want to especially thank our acting archivist of the United States Adrian ph Thomas I also want to acknowledge several members of the House who have great interest in intelligence matters I want to thank Congressman Reyes Congressman Hoekstra Congressman King as well as Congressman Thompson for being here today Thank you so much These are extraordinary times for our country We re confronting a historic economic crisis We re fighting two wars We face a range of challenges that will define the way that Americans will live in the 21st century So there s no shortage of work to be done or responsibilities to bear And we ve begun to make progress Just this week we ve taken steps to protect American consumers and homeowners and to re our system of government contracting so that we better protect our people while spending our money more wisely It s a good bill The engines of our economy are slowing beginning to turn and we re working towards historic re on health care and on energy I want to say to the members of Congress I welcome all the extraordinary work that has been done over these last four months on these and other issues In the midst of all these challenges however my single most important responsibility as president is to keep the American people safe It s the first thing that I think about when I wake up in the morning It s the last thing that I think about when I go to sleep at night And this responsibility is only magnified in an era when an extremist ideology threatens our people and technology gives a handful of terrorists the potential to do us great harm We are less than eight years removed from the deadliest attack on American soil in our history We know that Al Qaida is actively planning to attack us again We know that this threat will be with us for a long time and that we must use all elements of our power to defeat it Already we ve taken several steps to achieve that goal For the first time since 2002 we re providing the necessary resources and strategic direction to take the fight to the extremists who attacked us on 9 11 in Afghanistan and Pakistan We re investing in the 21st century military intelligence capabilities that will allow us to stay one step ahead of a nimble enemy We have reenergized a global nonproliferation regime to deny the world s most dangerous people access to the world s deadliest weapons And we ve launched an effort to secure all loose nuclear materials within four years We re better protecting our border and increasing our preparedness for any future attack or natural disaster We re building new partnerships around the world to disrupt dismantle and defeat Al Qaida and it s affiliates And we have renewed American diplomacy so that we once again have the strength and standing to truly lead the world Now these steps are all critical to keeping America secure but I believe with every fiber of my being that in the long run we also cannot keep this country safe unless we enlist the power of our most fund mental values The documents that we hold in this very hall the Declaration of Independence the Constitution the Bill of Rights These are not simply words written into aging parchment They are the foundation of liberty and justice in this country and a light that shines for all who seek freedom fairness equality and dignity around the world I stand here today as someone whose own life was made possible by these documents My father came to these shores in search of the promise that they offered My mother made me rise before dawn to learn their truths when I lived as a child in a foreign land My own American journey was paved by generations of citizens who gave meaning to those simple words To a more perfect union I ve studied the Constitution as a student I ve taught it as a teacher I ve been bound by it as a lawyer and a legislator I took an oath to preserve protect and defend the Constitution as commander in chief And as a citizen I know that we must never ever turn our back on its enduring principles for expedient s sake I make this claim not simply as a matter of idealism We uphold our most cherished values not only because doing so is right but because it strengthens our country and it keeps us safe Time and again our values have been our best national security asset in war and peace in time of ease and in eras of upheaval Fidelity to our values is the reason why the United States of America grew from a small string of colonies under the writ of an empire to the strongest nation in the world It s the reason why enemy soldiers have surrendered to us in battle knowing they d receive better treatment from America s armed forces than from their own government It s the reason why America has benefited from strong alliances that amplified our power and drawn a sharp moral contrast with our adversaries It s the reason why we ve been able to overpower the iron fist of fascism and outlast the Iron Curtain of communism and enlist free nations and free peoples everywhere in the common cause and common effort of liberty From Europe to the Pacific we ve been the nation that has shut down torture chambers and replaced tyranny with the rule of law That is who we are And where terrorists offer only the injustice of disorder and destruction America must demonstrate that our values and our institutions are more resilient than a hateful ideology After 9 11 we knew that we had entered a new era that enemies who did not abide by any law of war would present new challenges to our application the law that our government would need new tools to protect the American people and that these tools would have to allow us to prevent attacks instead of simply prosecuting those who tried to carry them out Unfortunately faced with an uncertain threat our government made a series of hasty decisions I believe that many of these decisions were motivated by a sincere desire to protect the American people But I also believe that all too often our government made decisions based on fear rather than foresight All too often our government trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions Instead of strategically applying our power and power principles too often we set those principles aside as luxuries that we could no longer afford And during this season of fear too many of us Democrats and Republicans politicians journalists and citizens fell silent In other words we went off course This is not my assessment alone It was an assessment that was shared by the American people who nominated candidates for president from both major parties to despite our many differences called for a new approach one that rejected torture and one that recognized the imperative the closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay Now let me be clear We are indeed at war with Al Qaida and it s affiliates We do need to update our institutions to deal with this threat But we must do so with an abiding confidence in the rule of law and due process in checks and balances and accountability For reasons that I will explain the decisions that were made over the last eight years established an ad hoc legal approach for fighting terrorism that was neither effective nor sustainable a framework that failed to rely on our legal traditions and time tested institutions and that failed to use our values as a compass And that s why I took several steps upon taking office to better protect the American people First I band the use of so called enhanced interrogation techniques by the United States of America Now I know some have argued that brutal s like waterboarding were necessary to keep us safe I could not disagree more It s commander in chief I see the intelligence I bear the responsibility for keeping this country safe And I categorically reject the assertion that these are the most effective means of interrogation What s more they undermine the rule of law They alienate us in the world They serve as a recruitment tool for terrorists and increase the will of our enemies to fight us while decreasing the will of others to work with America They risk the lives of our troops by making it less likely that others will surrender to them in battle and more likely that Americans will be mistreated if they are captured In short they did not advance our war and counterterrorism efforts they undermined them And that is why I ended them once and for all Now I should add the arguments against these techniques did not originate from my administration As Senator McCain once said torture serves as a great propaganda tool for those who recruit people to fight against us And even under President Bush there was recognition among members of his own administration including a secretary of state other senior officials and many in the military and in intelligence community that those who argued for these tactics were on the wrong side of the debate and the wrong side of history That s why we must leave these s where they belong in the past They are not who we are and they are not America Now the second decision that I made was to order the closing of the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay For over seven years we have detained hundreds of people at Guantanamo During that time the system of military commissions that were in place at Guantanamo succeeded in convicting a grand total of three suspected terrorists Let me repeat that three convictions in over seven years Instead of bringing terrorists to justice efforts of prosecution met setback after setback Cases lingered on And in 2006 the Supreme Court invalidated the entire system Meanwhile over 525 detainees were released from Guantanamo under not my administration under the previous administration Let me repeat that Two thirds of the detainees were released before I took office and ordered the closure of Guantanamo There s also no question that Guantanamo set back the moral authority that is America s strongest currency in the world Instead of building a durable framework for the struggle against Al Qaida that drew upon our deeply held values and traditions our government was defending positions that undermined the rule of law In fact part of the rationale for establishing Guantanamo in the first place was the misplaced notion that a prison there would be beyond the law a proposition that the Supreme Court soundly rejected Meanwhile instead of serving as a tool to counter terrorism Guantanamo became a symbol that helped Al Qaida recruit terrorists to its cause Indeed the existence of Guantanamo likely created more terrorists around the world than it ever detained So the record is clear Rather than keeping us safer the president at Guantanamo has weakened American national security It is a rallying cry for our enemies It success back the willingness of our allies to work with us in fighting an enemy that operates in scores of countries By any measure the cost of keeping it open far exceed the complications involved in closing it That s why I argued that it should be closed throughout my campaign and that is why I ordered it closed within one year The third decision that I made was to order a receive of all pending cases at Guantanamo I knew when I ordered Guantanamo closed that it would be difficult and complex There are 240 people there are who have now spent years in legal limbo In dealing with the situation we don t have the luxury of starting from scratch We re cleaning up something that is quite simply a mess a misguided experiment that has left in its wake a flood of legal challenges that my administration is forced to deal with on a constantly almost daily basis and that consumes the time of government officials whose time should be spent on better protecting our country Indeed the legal challenges that have sparked so much debate in recent weeks here in Washington would be taking place whether or not I decided to close Guantanamo For example the court ordered the release of 17 Uighurs 17 Uighur detainees took place last fall when George Bush was president The Supreme Court that invalidated the system of prosecution at Guantanamo in 2006 was overwhelmingly appointed by Republican presidents not wild eyed liberals In other words the problem of what to do with Guantanamo detainees was not caused by my decision to close the facility The problem exists because of the decision to open Guantanamo in the first place Now let me be blunt There are no neat or easy answers here I wish there were But I can tell you that the wrong answer is to pretend like this problem will go away if we maintain an unsustainable status quo As president I refuse to allow this problem to fester I refuse to pass it on to somebody else It is my responsibility to solve the problem Our security interests will not permit us to delay Our courts won t allow it and neither should our conscience Now over the last several weeks we ve seen a return of politicization of these issues that have characterized the last several years I m an elected official I understand these problems arouse passions and concerns They should We re confronting some of the most complicated questions that a democracy can face But I have no interest in spending all of our time relitigating the policies of the last eight years I ll leave that to others I want to solve these problems And I want to solve them together as Americans And we will be ill served by some of the fear mongering that emerges whenever we discuss this issue Listening to the recent debate I ve heard words that frankly are calculated to scare people rather than educate them words that have more to do with politics than protecting our country So I want to take this opportunity to lay out what we are doing and how we intend to resolve these outstanding issues I will explain how each action that we are taking will help build a framework that protects both the American people and the values that we hold most dear And I ll focus on two broad areas First issues relating to Guantanamo and our detention policy but second I also want to discuss issues relating to security and transparency Now let me begin by disposing of one argument as plainly as I can We are not going to release anyone if it would endanger our national security nor will we release detainees within the United States who endanger the American people Where demanded by justice and national security we will seek to transfer some detainees to the same type of facilities in which we hold all manner of dangerous and violent criminals within our borders namely highly secure prisons that ensure the public safety As we make these decisions bear in mind the following fact Nobody has ever escaped from one of our federal super max prisons which hold hundreds of convicted terrorists As Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said the idea that we cannot find a place to securely house 250 plus detainees within the states is not rational We are currently in the process of reviewing each of the detainee cases at Guantanamo to determine the appropriate policy for doing with them And as we do so we are acutely aware that under the last administration detainees were released and in some cases returned to the battle field That s why we are doing away with the poorly planned haphazard approach that led those detainees go in the past Instead we are treating these case with the care and attention that the law requires and that our security demands Now going forward these cases will fall into five distinct categories First whenever feasible we will try those who have violated American criminal laws in federal courts Courts provided for by the United States Constitution Some have derided our federal courts as incapable of handling the trials of terrorists They are wrong Our courts and our juries our citizens are tough enough to convict terrorists The record make that clean Ramzi Yousef tried to blow up the World Trade Center He was convicted in our courts and is serving a life sentence in U S prisons Zacarius Moussaoui has been identified as the twentieth 9 11 hijacker He was convicted in our courts and he too is serving a life sentence in prison If we try those terrorists in our courts and hold them in our prisons then we can do the same with detainees from Guantanamo Recently we prosecuted and received a guilty plea from a detainee Al Mari in federal court after years of legal confusion We re preparing to transfer another detainee to the Southern District Court of New York where he will face trial to charges related to the 1998 bombings of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania bombings that killed over 200 people Preventing this detainee from coming to our shores would prevent his trial and conviction And after over a decade it is time to finally see that justice is served And that is what we intend to do The second category of cases involves detainees who violate the laws of war and are therefore best tried through military commissions Now military commissions have a history in the United States dating back to George Washington and the Revolutionary War They are an appropriate venue for trying detainees for violations of the laws of war They allow for the protection of sensitive sources and s of intelligence gathering They allow for the safety and security of participants and for the presentation of evidence gathered from the battle field that cannot always be effectively presented in federal courts Now some have suggested that this represents a reversal on my part They should look at the record In 2006 I did strongly oppose legislation proposed by the Bush administration and passed by the Congress because it failed to establish a legitimate legal framework with the kind of meaningful due process rights for the accuses that could stand up on appeal I said at that time however that I supported the use of military commissions to try detainees provided there were several res And in fact there was some bipartisan efforts to achieve those res Those are the res that we are now making Instead of using the flawed commissions of the last seven years my administration is bringing our commissions in line with the rule of law We will no longer permit the use of evidence as evidence statements that have been obtained using cruel inhuman or degrading interrogation s We will no longer place the burden to prove that hearsay is unreliable on the opponent of the hearsay And we will give detainees greater latitude in selecting their own counsel and more protections if they refuse to testify These res among others will make our military commissions a more credible and effective means of administering justice And I will work with Congress and members of both parties as well as legal authorities across the political spectrum on legislation to ensure that these commissions are fair legitimate and effective The third category of detainees includes those who have been ordered released by the courts Now let me repeat what I said earlier This has nothing to do with my decision to close Guantanamo It has to do with the rule of law The courts have spoken They have found that there is no legitimate reason to hold 21 of the people currently held at Guantanamo Nineteen of these findings took place before I was sworn into office I cannot ignore these rulings because as president I too am bound by the law The United States is a nation of laws and so we must abide by these rulings The fourth category of cases involves detainees who we have determined can be transferred